The question of whether agriculture should sit down with groups like HSUS to find “common cause” is our poll question this week on AgWired.com and while the answers had at first been running well against such dialogue, the poll has now been “hijacked” by HSUS supporters voting in favor. Overnight last week, the poll received nearly 400 responses in the affirmative – and some of the comments of those supporters show exactly why all of agriculture should be very afraid of their agenda.
“Let animals be animals, not commodities.”
“Stop the torture and Killing of the animals.”
“People should just stop eating animals period – there’s no such thing as humane murder.”
The ultimate agenda is obvious – the end to animal agriculture. Once the livestock industry begins to make concessions to animal rights activists that drastically change production methods it becomes a very slippery slope very quickly. It will only be a short matter of time before allowing chickens more room in cages becomes allowing all animals the right to life. Treating animals humanely is not the same as treating them like they are humans – but many activists see no difference.
This website is very well-read by animal activist individuals. We have an obligation to not just defend, but educate. We get lots of comments on our posts about topics like this and it is important for the agriculture community to use this forum for intelligent dialogue and healthy debate. Sometimes it’s easier to just call them wackos and be done with it, but better still to rationally explain that livestock producers know way more about how to care for their animals than HSUS does, and we really like to eat meat!